


I can only

by sli



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1676186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sli/pseuds/sli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser looks over Detective Vecchio's desk carefully, cataloging what she sees for anything that might be of use in understanding the detective. She adds <i>less disorganized than disinclined towards order</i> to the list of things she knows about Detective Ray -- likely a nickname, though the nameplate on her desk lists no other -- Vecchio, where it joins <i>gangly, voluble, a flashy dresser, the sole female detective working out of this precinct,</i> and <i>at the moment, exceedingly shrill.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I can only

**Author's Note:**

> Written for DS Match 2008. Importing oooooooold fic in 2014.
> 
>  
> 
> Author's notes: Many happy thanks to catwalksalone and lamentables for beta; aingeal8c, spuffyduds, zabira and the rest of ds_team_whimsy for being awesome; and china_shop, sageness, and brynnmck for making it all happen.

**The Northwest Territories**

 

Caroline was reinforcing the weak seam between faded gray flannel and faded red plaid when the first contraction seized her. Robert was out exercising the dogs; he should return shortly. Still, she bit off the thread, set the quilt aside, and waddled over to the radio.

The Parsons arrived by snowshoe within two hours. Emma bustled around setting water on to boil and tidying the sheets, all the while telling the same stories of her own childbirths Caroline had heard every time they'd met over the previous five months. Frank pulled a chair close to the bed and silently held Caroline's hand. His own was spotted with age, but his grip was strong and he didn't complain, later, when she must have hurt him.

Robert returned home the next day, appearing all at once in the doorway, stomping snow off his boots, his voice sliding along the scale from boom to squeak: "That fool Pritchard decided to try bobsledding on the creek again, to which I can only say -- oh hell. Pardon me. Heck. Heavens to Betsy. Caroline?"

The baby's blurry blue eyes were closed now, her face scrunched up in sleep, and Caroline looked away to beam at her husband as Emma bustled over to share the news. "You have a daughter, Robert. A healthy baby girl."

"Well," said Robert in the utterly horrified tone of a joyful new father. "Well, I'll be."

 

 

**Chicago**

 

Fraser looks over Detective Vecchio's desk carefully, cataloging what she sees for anything that might be of use in understanding the detective. She adds _less disorganized than disinclined towards order_ to the list of things she knows about Detective Ray -- likely a nickname, though the nameplate on her desk lists no other -- Vecchio, where it joins _gangly, voluble, a flashy dresser, the sole female detective working out of this precinct,_ and _at the moment, exceedingly shrill._

_"A lady Mountie? Come on, Lieutenant, how am I supposed to do my job if I'm babysitting that?"_

Fraser indulges herself by flipping over the first yellow-lined page on a nearby notepad. Detective Vecchio's organizational system will take some decoding, but already she has identified three ongoing cases begging for attention. Excellent.

Surveying the room, she nods politely at two men -- definitely detectives, based on the bulges under their suit jackets and their proprietary confidence alone -- standing together against the opposite wall, their shoulders angled together to create a small zone of intimacy. The African-American detective inclines his head coolly in response while the Caucasian detective appears to have something stuck in his nose. They're both enjoying themselves.

On the other side of the closed door, the lieutenant's low rumble is decisive, Detective Vecchio's protests now without purpose, and Fraser squares her shoulders as Detective Vecchio -- her own, more eloquent shoulders slumped in defeat -- returns to the bullpen.

"A dog? Nobody said anything about a dog."

Fraser adds _fond of complaining_ to the list.

********

Ray finds her amusing. That is, she has to admit, a pleasant change of pace.

********

"Is that a _bun_?" Ray asks much in much the tone of one eyeing a surfboard on the Iditarod. "I don't know about Canada, but here in Chicago it's 1994."

"It's a practical hairstyle, Ray," Fraser says, flipping through her notes. She touches her tongue to her lower lip in concentration.

"Uh-huh." Ray looks over to where Detective Gardino has just walked into a perfectly innocent file cabinet. "Yeah, maybe I see your point."

"Hm. Look here. These witness statements don't mesh."

Ray leans over her shoulder to read, her own hair tickling Fraser's forehead. "And this dim bulb is the liar. His uncle is Average Norm Bethune."

"Average Norm? That's ... rather amusing."

"Just wait 'til you meet him. He's a real laugh riot. We've got the guy, we've got the guy," Ray crows. "Eat dust, Louis!"

"Up yours, Vecchio."

_List: Savvy._

********

Average Norm was not pleased to see them.

Fraser sees Ray safely to the hospital and returns to the 2-7 to attend to the paperwork. She tidies the desk, assists a young man whose father may have been arrested earlier in the day (he was not, and none too pleased with his son for assuming he was), and talks for some time with Janice on the night cleaning crew, whose daughter has just begun at Truman College and will be the death of her.

When Janice begins to run down, Fraser sets her hat firmly on her head, pries Dief out of the break room, and begins the walk back to her apartment. The street is damp enough to be reflective, neon and brake lights dazzling against gray black.

She isn't alone anymore, and Ray doesn't have Diefenbaker's knack for avoiding injury. The responsibility weighs heavy for a moment, but she is more than capable, and certainly Ray does possess many strengths. It's been several years since Fraser had a regular partner, perhaps she's become overly used to fending for herself alone.

Perhaps she's just homesick; she's rarely been so far from her element before and the dislocation could easily set her off her stride. At home, she might be out with the dogs, or better, just her and Dief, pushed to the limits of their endurance, burned by ice and sun and exertion, stripped clean and bare to the point where she's only what is necessary and nothing that is not. She's leaning slightly as she walks, compensating for the blow of imagined wind, when a familiar car pulls over next to her and Ray yells, "Yo, Fraser!"

"Are you sure you should be driving?" Fraser asks through the passenger window; Ray's left arm is in a beige sling that looks out of place against her shiny chartreuse blouse.

Ray's uninjured hand caresses the steering wheel like a lover. "Turbo Hydra-Matic 400," she says. "Three-speed automatic transmission. C'mon, I'll give you a lift."

After Fraser and Dief settle in and the car is in motion, and Fraser doesn't immediately begin to speak, Ray asks, "What's up, Fraser?"

"I've been thinking about the nature of partnership and responsibility."

"Sure, that makes sense," Ray says, reaching over to signal for the turn. Fraser resists the urge to hold the steering wheel. "Me, I was thinking about a hamburger."

"That, too," Fraser agrees, but she ends up ordering a bowl of minestrone with a French roll. It costs a dollar less and is more nutritionally sound in this environment. Ray's burger looks delicious, though.

She adds _breakable_ to the list.

********

The Vecchio house is claustrophobic and overly warm, charged with voices and activity. It reminds Fraser of many homes in the north, filled to the rafters with extended family, nothing like the hush and order that characterized every one of the cabins and apartments of her late childhood and adolescence.

Mrs. Vecchio beams with pleasure as she holds Fraser's face in her plump, soft fingers. "Well, aren't you a beauty? Look at that skin, that hair..."

"Ma!"

"She is! You have eyes, you can see. And her _posture_."

Fraser just manages a polite greeting of her own, impossibly formal in the face of Mrs. Vecchio's warmth, before Ray rescues her, distracting Mrs. Vecchio and pushing Fraser towards the dining table.

Dinner is excellent and plentiful, and at Mrs. Vecchio's repeated urging Fraser eats until she's uncomfortably full. She and Ray are seated close enough to brush elbows, yet Fraser finds herself wishing she could shift closer, possibly even behind her. Tony's conversation tends towards the explosive, with unfortunate results when chewing.

_List: Ray is lucky._

********

"Oh, _no_." The way it swoops and quavers, Fraser can imagine Ray's voice as a bird in flight. Or possibly a pterodactyl, something ungainly yet oddly delightful. "There is no way you could identify him because of the reflective vest. It wasn't even _his_."

"Then it's fortunate we don't have only the evidence from the safety vest; there's Diefenbaker's observation about the suspect's route. Nobody remotely familiar with the neighborhood would have--"

"And how am I supposed to put that on the search warrant, Benny, huh? C'mon, you're a bright Mountie, surely you can come up with something involving fingerprints or eyewitnesses, something I can put on paper with a straight face. And while you're doing that, _I'm_ going to work on the Johnson case, because the Johnson case is _big_. And it's not about kids and pedestrian safety, because I do not want to be the cop they go to for kids, you get me?"

"Ray, this is a menace in the community--" Fraser starts, but Ray talks right over her, voice raised and attention drifting.

"Lieutenant Welsh gave me the lead and I'm not one to let my superior officers down. I've got it well in hand, no problems, no worries, no need to thank--"

"Don't push it, Detective," Welsh rumbles as he disappears back into his office with a fresh cup of stale coffee.

"Absolutely, sir."

"Ray," Fraser leans forward and tries again.

"Benny, I'm working here." Ray shuffles papers around on her desk, refusing to meet Fraser's eyes.

After several minutes, Fraser says, "Well, there was a trace of paint on Mr. Browning's forefinger and another on his left shoe. I imagine it will match the paint on the street and therefore also the paint on Fiona Anderson's bicycle tires."

Ray shoves back from the desk and grabs her keys. "That's good enough for me."

_List: Open to reason_

********

In their absence, Detectives Huey and Gardino break the Johnson case.

_List: Not always open to reason. At times sulky. Also, yells._

********

Two days later, Ray and Fraser discover that the Johnson case is actually the Preston case and much bigger than they'd thought.

The satisfaction of the discovery is somewhat diminished by the gun pointed at them and the rope tying them to back-to-back office chairs.

"Lady cops!" Preston says, not for the first time. He doesn't seem particularly agile of mind for a man acting as the brains of a complex crime syndicate. "Women! And one of them a Mountie!"

"Yeah, it'll make a real good story for your cellmate," Ray mutters sourly. "'I was busted by _Charlie's Angels_!' you'll say, 'Have fun in the penitentiary,' we'll say. It'll be great."

" _Charlie's Angels_ , Ray?"

"I'll tell you later."

Fraser wriggles surreptitiously, attempting to loosen the bonds tying her to her chair. Immediately behind her, Ray hisses in discomfort. "Sorry," Fraser says, sotto voce.

"You should be sorry, sorry for getting us into this mess."

Preston looks on tolerantly, his gun relaxed on his knee as he balances his chair back on two legs. "I never saw such a thing. Would you care to share the story of how you two came to be partners? I bet it's a doozy."

"A doozy," Ray moans. "Who are you, Mr. Rogers?"

"There's no need for rudeness," Fraser chides.

"I don't have to be rude? What do you want? This is Chicago; he's a mob boss with a gun! If ever there was an appropriate time and place for rudeness, I'd say it's right here, right now."

"Right here, right now works for me."

Together, Ray and Fraser propel their joined office chairs toward Preston. Fortunately, the floor is clean and the wheels in fine working order, so they make contact before he can react. He loses control of his off-balance chair and tumbles back with a squawk, his gun crashing to the floor beside him. Before he can retrieve the weapon, Dief is standing over it, growling through bared teeth.

"Aw, crap," says Preston.

"Indeed," Fraser says, finally working her thumb out of the restraints. After that it's a simple matter, and in moments she's freed herself from the chair and kicked the gun across the floor. "Hold him, Dief."

"Hey, untie me."

"Just a moment," Fraser says. Ray's handcuffs are still in their waistband holster. She has to reach under Ray's jacket for them, apologizing all the way.

"Untie me, Benny."

"Absolutely, Ray." Once she has Preston cuffed, she checks for guards at the door. None, thank goodness.

"Fraser!"

"Right, right. Sorry, Ray."

Fraser stays to guard the prisoner as Ray searches for an operational phone. She has plenty of time to answer his questions about the history of women in the RCMP and how she came to be partnered with a Chicago police detective.

Preston isn't as dim as she'd initially and ungraciously assumed, and in fact he later publishes from prison a really quite incisive analysis of the relationship between female employment in police and intelligence fields and said fields' attempts to quell feminist activities. While his analysis is global in scope, he uses the RCMP in the 1970s as one example, and thanks Fraser in his author's notes.

She's sure he meant well.

_List: Excellent communicator. At the moment, extremely happy._

********

"What? Do I have something on my face?" Ray asks.

"No," Fraser replies, too quickly. "No, I was just woolgathering."

"They do a lot of that in Canada?"

Not in the Northwest Territories, no. Fraser could explain about the sheep industry in Canada, and then Ray would laugh and roll her eyes northward, but she doesn't.

She'd been watching Ray's face, the slight pinch between her eyes as she looked through the windshield at nothing in particular, and thinking about how she'd like to give Ray an orgasm. A gift.

She rubs her forehead, pushing the thoughts away. She hasn't had a great many close friends; sometimes she forgets the distinction between friendship and sexual attraction.

When she looks back at Ray, Ray is already watching her, face half in shadow, smiling that warm smile that isn't much more than deepening the dents at the corners of her mouth. Sexual attraction is dangerous and confusing, but friendship, _this_ friendship, is clear and absolute. Fraser smiles back, bright and comfortable, and talks about sheep.

_List: Ray is her friend._

********

When Fraser was at Depot, she had an instructor named Laura Secord. Laura Secord was firm, capable, rather harder on female students than the reverse, and over a period of months Fraser had a series of vividly erotic dreams about her.

The dreams were all characterized by abandon: they were naked and driven by an all-consuming hunger, falling into each other's bodies in amorphous, cell-dissolving pleasure.

In truth, the dreams were all terribly vague, something Fraser found irritating. It was perfectly clear to her that sex was, yes, a beautiful way to express love between two people, but also a fundamentally physical, mechanical act. She wasn't in love but she was perfectly capable of giving herself an orgasm, and if her best fantasy material was floating around in tangerine clouds with Laura Secord, she would have to look into lucid dreaming.

She doesn't know what to think of her dreams about Ray.

********

The 2-7 is celebrating, passing around plastic cups of champagne in the tinsel-bedecked squad room. Celebration is much the same here as anywhere: trays of purchased and homemade food, music, braggadocio, inebriation. Diefenbaker adores it, of course. Fraser does as well: at moments like these their unit, the ever-shifting, ever-competitive, ever-discontent 2-7, comes together in open affection and shared purpose.

Currently, that affection and purpose is being expressed in a round of toasts, ranging from Lieutenant Welsh's grudging acknowledgment of recent successful cases to Gardino's "To freedom!" both of which are greeted with roars of approval.

Ray is flushed and bright-eyed, and she slings an arm around Fraser's neck and yells, "My partner!" to the noisy approbation of the room. Then, as Fraser readies a return salute, Ray leans in and delivers a smacking kiss on Fraser's mouth. Fraser has seen Ray kiss Mrs Vecchio in just this manner. "To Canada!"

Detective Huey puts his fingers in his mouth to whistle and Detective Gardino thumps Fraser on the back, as if neither has ever sneered and whispered, and Fraser is too warm, far too warm to stay.

The walk home is cool and familiar. Celebration is a treat, after all, and all treats taste best in moderation.

_List: Affectionate._

********

Ray meets a man, declares herself in love, and mourns the end of the relationship all in the span of days. Fraser feels like she has whiplash merely spectating. Even in her disappointment and regret Ray seems to regard the affair with a lightness Fraser finds utterly foreign, as if love is fun and available for the taking or the losing with little matter which.

Ray is maudlin, sighing deeply and expecting commiseration for her loss and loneliness, and Fraser can't stand feeling so separate from her, so different and unknown. Selfish, perhaps, but there it is.

Fraser leans closer to the cool air coming off the window and tells the story out loud for the first time in her life. She's said it before, practicing as if for her own trial, for cross-examination, trying to find the right balance between revelation and failure.

"There was a woman once." And, after a lifetime of the satisfaction of duty and personal achievement weighed down by the grinding _not belonging_ , she found -- stumbled across, quite literally, unexpected, unprepared, unimaginable -- the same sensation she had at home, out on the ice, pushing herself to the limit, this exuberant, visceral _rightness_ with another person. In another person. Or thought she had.

Who knew what she'd been feeling, what Victoria had been feeling. They were nearly dead, for heaven's sake. But it had been a revelation, an answer to a question she hadn't known to ask, so when she lost it, instead of being the greater self she imagined herself so briefly, she was left less than she had been before.

For all of her practice, it comes out wrong. She tells the details, gives everything but their longitude and latitude, but not what it meant, not what she wants Ray to hear.

********

Victoria is terrifying. Here, here in Chicago, her presence alone making Fraser real and fragile and clumsy and alive and starving and guilty, so guilty, my god.

Fraser's hands shake. Victoria.

********

The sex isn't vague, nor characterized by abandon. It's Fraser's hand on Victoria, Fraser watching to see what she likes and then doing it more, doing it until Fraser's hand cramps and then using her mouth instead. It's crossing the boundary between bodies. She never loses her head, is never unaware. Rather, she's hyperaware.

She spreads her legs and pulls Victoria to her, rubbing herself against Victoria's thigh. Every action is a decision, her body does what she tells it to, and here her body is for pleasure. It makes so much sense.

It is transcendent, revelatory, visceral, addictive, and Victoria laughs and draws her teeth along Fraser's breast when she tries to explain.

********

Victoria stands behind her, facing the small bathroom mirror. Her fine hands stroke Fraser's sides, skim her breasts. Fraser's nipples are raw and sore, her thighs damp and cool.

Victoria winds her hand through Fraser's hair and tightens it into a fist. She pulls Fraser's head back slightly, lifting her chin.

Victoria's other hand slides between Fraser's legs, the heel of her palm hard against Fraser's pubic bone, painful and exciting.

Victoria rubs against her, neat pubic hair against Fraser's buttocks. "This is who you are," Victoria says, and she says it with love.

Fraser believes her.

********

After, Fraser can still smell Victoria, the tangy, unmistakable smell of arousal. It lingers for days. It turns her stomach. It turns her on.

********

It's unnatural, that intensity of feeling. Perhaps not for others, but everyone has their strengths and Fraser's are decidedly not in the area of romance. That is fine, of course. It's necessary to know one's strengths and weaknesses, the weaknesses even more so.

She heals, Ray heals, life continues. Their patterns are well established, and she counts herself lucky that their friendship can weather betrayal as well as it has.

They've always indulged in pissing contests and Ray's affectionate mockery was never unbarbed; she is certain that is not new.

And Ray has always been resilient. Fraser admires that, would do well to emulate it, really. After all, if she has two good friends and a purpose, she is far more fortunate than many.

********

Fraser goes to meet Ray at the station and Welsh says, "I thought she was with you."

It takes twenty-two minutes to figure out which lead Ray had been following and then find the man at the newsstand who saw her taken and didn't report it.

It takes another forty minutes to find out who took her and where she's being held.

That is far too long.

"Hey, hey, c'mon. I'm fine. I'm _fine_."

"Of course you are. Yes, I can see that." Fraser can't stop talking. Ray _is_ fine. She'd been locked in an empty storeroom and the worst damage she'd suffered was ruining a shoe trying to break out a wire-reinforced window. It had been one of Ray's favorite shoes, an extravagant purchase only a few months ago. She wore them several times a week, at least.

It's the Johnson case again. Apparently Johnson inspires more loyalty than Preston; his right-hand man had been vacationing in Aruba at the time of his arrest, and felt the need to make his objection clear.

Ray joins her on the curb outside. Dief is terrorizing seagulls across the docks.

"The aftereffects of adrenalin," Fraser explains. "He was worried about you."

"No kidding." Ray slumps forward, stretching out her back, rolling her shoulders until her head is between her knees. She gathers her lank hair in her hands, lifts it off her neck.

Ray has a beautiful neck. Fraser looks away.

********

Sometimes, when Ray is very tired or has been very exasperated, her wry, affectionate "Benny" softens and takes on an almost voluptuous tone. " _Bene_ ," she says, and even if Fraser isn't looking she knows the expression on Ray's face.

_List: Bilingual_

********

And then she is gone.

She's gone, she _left_ and that is that.

The new Ray's ludicrous cover would be imperiled if she didn't call him by the appropriate name. Moreover, he would be hurt, and he has done nothing wrong, has in fact shown himself to be a fine, capable, and unexpectedly amusing partner.

Fraser bites her lip, feeling red everywhere, red rage, red uniform, red face. She's boiling over and there is nobody here save Diefenbaker who can tell she isn't perfectly calm. She never gets to keep _anything_ , _nothing_ is hers and only hers, not even one single, stupid, beloved name.

"Ray," she says to herself, imagining Ray's face, her steady regard that always shifts too soon, full of humor and pain and confusion and affection and Fraser had earned all of it and had meant to keep all of it. And Fraser is supposed to stay in this city without her when this city is hers and theirs and not Fraser's alone.

Fraser has lost so much, she can't put Ray in that sad dry place where her family lives, where her home lives, she _can't_.

"Fraser?"

It is intolerable. It is unfair. It is infuriating. It is, of course, necessary.

"Fraser!"

"Ray," she says to her partner, who shimmies and stumbles and is wrong and is as lonely as she.

********

"I just, sometimes I forget you're a girl. With girl parts." Ray gestures towards his own groin, presumably attempting to illustrate his point through contrast.

"Ah," Fraser replies crisply, flexing her toes in the borrowed heels. Nine blocks in pursuit and she is in agony. "Perfectly understandable. I'm sure it could happen to anybody."

"Uh-huh," Ray says, still frowning at her, those mysterious and unpredictable wheels in his head obviously turning busily.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She's never been asked to the Crystal Ballroom, and while she isn't without curiosity -- who wouldn't be, about such an outlandish-sounding place -- she has no desire to be on uncomfortable footing with her partner. Her hand flies automatically to adjust her collar, only to rediscover a neckline some long inches lower than usual.

"Think if I had you on my arm I'd have better luck?" Ray muses. "You'd make me look good."

Fraser laughs, perversely delighted. "I can't imagine it." She can, though, almost. As fairy-tale black and white versions of themselves, they could do the town, two misfits with long memories and no luck in love. They could flirt with women together, these two not-them people.

She stops her thoughts in their tracks. That way lies madness, and there is work to be done.

"If you didn't talk, I mean," Ray clarifies.

"Completely impractical, then."

"Story of my life."

Indeed.

********

She has changed. She has changed utterly, and even so she is utterly familiar, pale under her tan and strong under the thin hospital sheets.

Fraser stands at the foot of her bed, heart racing, and can't think of a single thing to say. Ray had returned looking -- scared, strong, healthy -- _radiant_ and now she is wounded again and still chatting comfortably, and Fraser is clumsy and useless to her.

"Go get your man," Ray says with a smile.

********

Their first day out, Fraser surprises Ray by lending her clear, strong alto to the chorus of "School's Out for Summer," and he laughs so hard he slides right off the sled.

Their second day out, they see a herd of caribou. It's not an unusually large herd, but Ray is speechless. Fraser feels proud, proud of Ray and the caribou and her home.

Their third day out, in the middle of a perfectly normal and comfortable conversation about survival strategies and the importance of protein, Ray says, entirely serious, "You are a very scary woman."

Their fourth day out, Ray pulls his cap down low, squints at the horizon and says, "I'm thinking all the time out here." She remembers her first weeks in Chicago, the everyday disorientation that kept her mind overactive to the point of paranoia, and thinks she understands.

Their fifth day out, Ray starts hitting the snow with short, controlled punches. When she finishes chewing her mouthful of pemmican -- that is, quite some time later -- and asks what's bothering him, he shouts, "Mid-life crisis. _Mid-life crisis_. Fuck!" and punches harder. She leaves him to it.

Their sixth day out, Ray asks what she wants to be when she grows up. "Useful," she says.

"Happy," Ray says. "I dunno."

The morning of their seventh day out, Ray says, "Coffee," and nothing else.

The afternoon of their seventh day out, Ray asks furiously, "So, you and me? You and me, how about it."

When she blinks and repeats, "You and me?" he says, "Never mind, never mind, bad idea. I take it back," zips his mouth shut and throws away the key.

Five minutes later, he says, "No really, how about it?"

She has him snowshoe for the rest of the day, and by evening he's much more relaxed -- actually, nearly comatose.

Shortly before four a.m. on the morning of their eighth day out, Ray says from inside his sleeping bag, "You, you think about girls, right? Women?" It's not a question. Ray is no fool.

"Of course I think about girls. I also think about women, men, my job, what we're having for breakfast, and the impact of global warming on crocodile reproduction. I think quite a lot, Ray."

Ray attempts to kick her and succeeds in tangling himself up inside the bag. She withdraws out of range and he eventually subsides.

"Me, too. I mean, with guys."

"Ah," she says.

"I did it with a guy once. Okay, three times, but really once."

"Hm," she says.

When they get up, she makes a point to pat him on the shoulder. She thinks he appreciates the gesture.

The rest of day, Fraser does not think about women.

Their ninth day out, Ray says, "Tabasco catamaran. Fleahawk."

She says, "Oh dear."

Ray's fever lasts four more days, during which time he says a great many more things that make very little sense, and she gets him safely to the spare bedroom of Quinn's second cousin Lillian's apartment, where he coughs and coughs and sleeps a great deal.

Humans are so very fragile. It makes her angry.

She sends a message to Buck Frobisher about the dogs, breaks down their supplies, chats with Rick Hansen about his flight schedule, and sits next to Ray's bed. She tells him stories: adventures she's had, oral history.

On what would have been their fourteenth day out, Ray complains about the lumpy bed, the way he smells, the way his chest hurts, the smell of the ointments and teas she and Lillian prepare. It's infinitely reassuring.

On what would have been their fifteenth day out, she allows him coffee. He coughs productively in Lillian's small shower and emerges from the bathroom with a goatee and patchy, unconvincing mutton chops.

"Very handsome, but you missed a spot," she tells him, indicating on her own face the areas of the upper lip, chin, and cheeks.

He insists she's just jealous.

They go out to the cafe, Ray lounging back in his seat, obstructing the aisle with his long legs, generally taking up as much room as possible. He looks like he's drawing strength from the formica, the dirty windows. He looks thin and tough. He looks happy. She is going to miss him so very much.

Ray clears his throat. "I'm really gonna miss you, Frase."

Her vision blurs for a moment and she's reminded of a story. "Do you remember the story I told you, about the hunter and the lost seal?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely," Ray says. "That's a good one."

"The story is about the origin of tears," she continues. "The hunter lost the seal that he needed, and when it was gone water leaked from his eyes. He didn't know what the tears meant, and was frightened. But he had a family, and they came and cried with him. Later, his son joined him in the hunt; they were successful and so survived."

"Yup, that's the one," Ray says. "Got it. Seals, huh? Tricky bastards."

She clears her throat, embarrassed, but Ray deserves to know how important he is. "Partners are like family, I think. I mean, it's been a long time since I've had much family to speak of, but I do think they are quite alike."

Ray ducks his head in response. His mustache is slightly darkened along his lips. "Survival is good. I am all about survival."

"Yes," she says. "I know."

_She gets out her mental list again: Ray is the seal? [Metaphorically and imperfectly, of course.]_

********

The 2-7, like the uniform she wears, is a surprising relief. In the hallway, in the bullpen, everywhere familiar faces greet her with friendship and a moment's hesitation, as if the weeks of her absence were more than enough to reestablish her oddity. Ray is ebullient, perhaps as a side-effect of his medication, and embraces co-workers, suspects, and office furniture with universal goodwill.

She converses politely, shares the story of their brief adventure, and comes abruptly face to face with the face she's come to see.

"Benny."

"Hello, Ray. You're looking much better."

"Time heals all wounds, right?" Ray puts a hand on her arm, then leans back and calls, "I'm taking her, Kowalski."

"Yeah, good luck with that," he replies, absorbed in hyperbolic description of the savage North.

Ray easily draws Fraser into their old pattern, embarking on a tale of the latest drama in the Vecchio household as if picking up a briefly interrupted conversation. When they reach the supply closet, Ray ushers her in with a wave and Fraser steps through the doorway without question.

Inside, Ray stops in the middle of her sentence to ask, sounding almost distracted, "How are you, Benny?"

The air is far too close, the closet painfully warm. Every action is a decision. Her body does what she tells it to. "Very well, Ray. Thank--"

She doesn't have a chance to finish before Ray's arms are around her, holding her tight as a sister. Ray had always been affectionate. It's an admirable quality.

"God, I missed you."

She reciprocates, giving Ray a firm hug, patting her back companionably. "Likewise. Very much so."

Ray shudders, a half-laugh, then says, "You are impossible. Jesus," and then she's letting go, releasing Fraser and stepping back, folding her arms across her chest. She doesn't look warmly amused or affectionately exasperated or dramatically annoyed: she looks almost angry, and it makes no sense at all; Fraser hasn't done anything at all to have irritated her already.

"Look," Ray starts again. "We have to -- I love you, all right? And you love me."

"Oh. I. Yes," says Fraser, because it's true. Of course they love each other. Of course it's not the point at all.

Ray is a detective in Chicago; the odds are stacked against her already. It would break her mother's heart. Fraser is ... not talented at romance, and apparently quite annoying to boot. And Ray is breakable. As strong as Ray is, she is still so fragile, humans are so fragile, so easily broken. Fraser can't bear it.

Ray's eyes narrow and she steps forward, gripping Fraser's shoulders, and all she says is a determined, "All right," before pressing her lips against Fraser's.

Fraser freezes, and the result is a painfully awkward parody of a kiss. It's all wrong, appalling that their friendship in all its complicated, wonderful glory has come to this clumsy, unerotic contact, in the workplace no less. She squeezes her eyes shut against the pain of it, because it hurts, Ray has been hurt, Ray will be hurt again, Fraser will be hurt again, everything always comes back to it.

"Ray," she says helplessly. "Ray, damn it."

"Yeah, I know," Ray murmurs, her voice gentle and implacable. "Suck it up. We're doing this."

Fraser lets her arms go around Ray's body, lets herself hold her as she's always wanted. She shapes her fingers around the graceful curve of Ray's neck, feeling the bump of vertebra under her soft skin. Ray feels wonderful. Fraser's never been more terrified in her life.

"If you want to," she says.

"Yeah. Yeah, I want to."

"All right then," Fraser agrees. She may be terrible at romance, but she is a Fraser; cowardice is beneath her.

_List: Given her druthers, Ray kisses slowly, languidly, and her whole face lights up with joy._  
Ray has at least twenty-three discrete moans, not including subcategories.  
In bed, Ray is more patient than she. 

********

The list of things Fraser knows about Ray Vecchio is very long and very thorough. Nowhere on the list does it indicate that some might consider her a less than beautiful woman, her nose overly generous, her curves modest, her waist and thighs thickening. It does say that she has lovely eyes and an elegant neck, a voice as entertaining as a pterodactyl, a heart and mind that understands Fraser's, and that Fraser loves her.

She doesn't know that Ray keeps her own list, scattered about in disordered scraps of memory, written on the back of the matchbook of the mind, you might say, if you were Fraser and had a glass of wine with dinner. If one collected the scraps together and formed a list, it would say something like: Constable Fraser -- _Benny_ , because it makes her twitch and makes her smile -- is a beautiful woman. I mean, really. Wow, hubba-hubba and a three-alarm fire. She's got a dynamite figure, a gorgeous face, she even has a beautiful _voice_. But she is a huge pain in the ass, and Ray loves her.

 

END

**  



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